


Sunset Remedy

by Voido



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Gen, No Metaverse, also a birthday present, delinquents being bros, it's just a smol hurt/fluff, who needs justice if you have each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-04
Updated: 2018-06-04
Packaged: 2019-05-18 07:21:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14848266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Voido/pseuds/Voido
Summary: They may be labeled delinquents - socially unvaluable, with no future waiting for them to be claimed.But no matter how people see and treat them, they will make each other's present worthwhile, for as long as they can.





	Sunset Remedy

**Author's Note:**

> _A birthday present for my beloved Meep!_  
>  I know it's a shorty, and it honestly isn't even the fandom or ship I initially had in mind, but I hope you still like it. <3  
> I also wanted to write a small something about no metaverse Akira and Ryuji still being friends ~~or more, as always~~ so that was another thing I could make happen here. 

“Lately, I heard he carries a knife around even in school.”

Even though the rumors should hurt, should at least considerably bother him; if there's a thing Akira has learned in the last long months, it's not to listen, not to care, and instead keep going his own way. He knows none of it is true – he doesn't carry a knife around in school, for one, and the reason he's even here in the first place is a huge web of lies as well. Back when all of this began, when he found himself in court facing his unjust sentence, his parents' decision to send him far away for his probation – he remembers spending night after night after _night_ awake in his room, the bedside lamp dimmed but never out, the same nightmare haunting him for weeks, for months, handcuffs cutting into his skin, brute force pulling him away from the scenery. Whenever he thinks about it now, there's but bits and pieces of the incident, like small flashes of memories. Sometimes his wrists seem to hurt, his eyes go dry and burn, he hears loud sirens and the sound of his own racing heartbeat, but never does he remember the full incident in one piece. He likes it better that way, he's long but decided, even if he doubts he'll be over it any time soon.

When the third person in the library answers, he snaps out of his confusing, dizzy trance.

“Honestly? To be expected of someone dumb enough to become friends with Sakamoto.”

Without him realizing it, Akira's fingers around his pen clench to a tight, painful fist. It doesn't really matter what they say about him – they're ignorant, and he could write a book about how wrong they are, it absolutely wouldn't make a difference, and that's fine. He doesn't need them to believe him.

But Akira wouldn't be here in Tokyo in he first place if it weren't for his inability to not care about others, and naturally, when they start talking badly about his one and only friend in this terrible school – louder, too, as if to prove that he's a topic they're allowed to gossip about – he finds his patience come to an end fast. He wants to call them out, force them to understand that they know nothing and that they have absolutely no right to act like this. Sure, it wouldn't change a thing – no one in this goddamn place is on either his or his friend's side; maybe that's why they've started getting along in the first place. But the injustice hurts, angers him, and he has to grab his belongings, shove them in his school bag and head out of the library quickly before he gets himself in trouble. It may look like running, but he knows that getting into a fight, even if it were only verbal, would not help either of them, and the last thing he wants is for his legal guardian to get an angry call from the school principal, which would undoubtedly happen, because who would believe that the convicted criminal wasn't the one who started it?

The world isn't fair, so it doesn't matter who's right and who's wrong, either.

He finds himself on the school's rooftop shortly after, and isn't in the slightest bit surprised that he isn't alone up here. A slim smile manages to reach not only his lips, but his eyes, too, because the wave and the huge grin thrown in his direction tear his thoughts from all the bad things they have to go through. It may not change the way they're treated, but it helps him deal with it, gives him the hope to believe that there's good things, too. You just have to look hard enough.

“I figured you would've gone home already, Ryuji.”

“Eh, ain't nothin' waitin' there, man. This place up here's fine. Kinda makes me feel like a rebel, y'know?”

He nods slightly before making his way over to the many partly broken tables and leans against one of them, puts his bag on the concrete floor and turns his head to look at the setting sun. It's repetitive, really. Waking up, going to a place where you know you'll never be accepted, study for a future that might never be granted to you, watch the day shift into night and realize that not a thing has changed at all, that another day has passed by for no real reason, with no real value.

“Ya got that thinkin' wrinkle up, dude. Somethin' the matter?”

He tears his eyes away from the horizon and looks over to his friend, studies the willingly presented emotions on his face. His eyes are wide, a sign that he's paying utmost attention. His lips are curled into a supportive grin, but his slightly furrowed brows give away that he's a bit worried, too. It'll never stop fascinating Akira, at least he can't believe it ever will. Ryuji Sakamoto – school's most infamous delinquent, known for punching a teacher, getting bad grades, engaging in fights and causing trouble whenever anyone even remotely asks for it. Despite all these things, despite the rumors and lies and injustice and unfairness, he sits here, injured leg crossed over his good one carefreely, seemingly not having the ounce of a care for anything going on in the school below them or even the whole world. All he does is sit, look and question, ready to listen, ready to help, ready to be the pillar to lean on when in actually, he himself is the one who deserves that pillar the most.

And because it's so genuine, because  it's the kindest treatment Akira has gotten not only ever since his conviction, but maybe since he can think, that makes it so wonderfully easy for his own smile to grow bigger, for his hands to reach out, for him to shake his head and lean their foreheads together, to forget all the bad around them and embrace what he has, to close his eyes and say.

“Not at all. Everything's alright.”

They stay on the rooftop until the school council president finds them there, a stern look on her face when she announces, yet again, because it happens almost everyday, that the place is off limits and that they need to leave. Without even having to think about it, they both board the same train from Shibuya, let the smell of freshly brewed coffee embrace them in café Leblanc and both pass out on the same old, screeching, crate-supported mattress that's hardly comfortable or even big enough for one grown person, let alone for two. Yet, they're both smiling contently, leaning onto each other for support and warmth and maybe, just maybe, their fingers brush and intertwine and everything's alright. They're untouchable, unstoppable.

In a better world, there'd be justice. A future to fight for, a present to happily look back to.

But as long as they have each other, tangled up to a cuddly mess, knowing that they can get each other through yet another day or week or month, that they can stay strong maybe not for oneself, but maybe for each other…

As long as they know they'll never be alone again-

That's all they need.


End file.
